HannahBecz

If Todd Howard’s hyping of Oblivion, Fallout3, Fallout4, and Skyrim have taught me anything - the game will come nowhere to delivering anything promised - will be massively buggy - and I’ll easily sink 100s of hours into the game not caring in the least bit and having a blast the entire time. Purchasing it again and again on every platform as the years pass. Though with gamepass I suppose I don’t have to worry about purchasing it anymore.

While Morrowind was my entry into the series in 2002/2003 - I had never heard of it until my head chef at the time told me I needed to purchase it. His hype delivered. But I have no clue what the hype of Morrowind pre-release was like or what was promised vs delivered. But I imagine it was quite similar.

You just unlocked a memory of why I now scroll down every shop menu before even looking at what they have for sale in any game.

That’s the reason. Some random gameboy game from like 30 years ago.

There was an old PC game called MegaRace. Somehow I changed my controls and set steering to Left was Right and Right was Left. I never noticed this for the entire time I played it.

When I bought Test Drive 4 the first race I proceeded to drive straight into a wall. After struggling for a while I went back to MegaRace and instantly realized what my issue was.

Fast forward a decade or two later after doing only console racing games, proceeded to buy Dirt Rally and use my keyboard and muscle memory kicked in and drove straight off the track. I basically have to set driving games I play keyboard with to reverse steering. Thankfully a wheel, seat, pedals, and shifter have alleviated this problem in my current life.

I couldn’t imagine storming the base on Mars with only the basic starter rifles in the MicroProse version. Though apart from the Hovertanks it might be actually doable.

That said I watched a friend play the fireaxis version of XCOM2 and he never put his troops into cover, just had them standing out in the open - yet somehow managed to beat the game using this “strategy”. He blew through troops like tissues during flu season though.

I always get stuck trying to replay FF8 because I can never properly get enough items to ever upgrade anyone’s main weapon- which is usually good enough to get through till mid-late game there’s some point that requires more physical weapon use and I just get roadblocked and give up. I could probably follow a guide but I always think I can do it myself.

More on track with your game though - I love Legend of Dragoons art style for their character sheet, but it feels so slow navigating it. I’d really really love a remaster.

Yeah that’s fine and all, it’s basically the same formula Bethesda uses - and a formula I love for gameplay. The issue is coming back 6 months to a year or more later and then trying to get back into it. Which is a struggle with games like that.

I usually keep handwritten notes about quests and activities, but sometimes even then I still cannot get back into them because they rely on intricate knowledge of gameplay mechanics I’ve forgotten over the timespan of absence.

I love Zelda, and have been slowly working my way through my catalogue of unplayed titles in the series. A Link to the Past was actually the first game I got with my SNES. But I skipped out on the N64 and GameCube ones. But I don’t have the time for TotK just yet. I did get BotW at launch - and it was fun - but the final boss fight was rather underwhelming.

But to be fair the only Zelda boss that hasn’t been a real pushover is the original NES one where it will let you fight the final boss without the item you need to defeat him. And in no way tells you this.

Anyway I still need to beat Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Odyssey (all launch purchases) before getting yet another Switch game. TotK is on my radar, but Starfield looms ever closer and I know I’ll never beat TotK in time. HLTB puts it at like 58 hours just to do the main story. That’s a daunting amount of time at my point in life right now.

Oh I want to go back and actually finish NV. I bought it at launch and played, but when I actually got to NV it was such a disappointment that it took me out of the entire game, and I didn’t get much further than that. I guess I got caught up in the in-game hype of New Vegas so much that I ended up with Paris Syndrome when I actually got there.

So I know I’m gonna have to restart, even if my save is somehow in the cloud because I have zero recollection of that game - having been nearly 13 years since I played now. And I don’t have the time to start a Bethesda game and finish it so close to another one coming out.

I think they skip the “have kids” part of life.

Like I enjoy games, but I’d rather spend time with kid and spouse than play them. Like I almost feel guilty taking time for myself to actually play them.

The spouse isn’t so much an issue to gaming, as separate work schedules gave ample time to just game. Kids on the other hand, and a special needs one for me, as the at-home parent take up almost every waking second of my day, from 7am to 8pm - 9pm if you count cleaning up the days activities.

My backlog is similar to yours - with the same “gotta get them in before Starfield comes out”. And I know it’s not gonna happen.

It was a much simpler time when you only had one console - and like 2 games + whatever you rented for the week.

Don’t forget taking so long a break between games that you completely forget what you’re supposed to be doing, and if the game offers no sort of recap/hand-holding quest system - you have to start from scratch.

At which point the daunting nature of that overwhelms you and you just sit there browsing your catalog for something new to play/continue until you’re 15 minutes past your allotted time - and you’re now even further behind.

Win/win all around.

I never played duke3d but I grew up playing the side scrollers. I didn’t know they were remastering those. Never heard of the Evercade and unfortunately another handheld isn’t for me.

However the VS looks like something I could install into my cars headunit along with my Roku for when I’m just chilling, and less maint. than my raspberry. Thanks for this post. I have something to look into here.

I never played links awakening on the game boy, and tried the remake on the switch. I got lost or stuck fairly early on and gave up and moved on. Eventually I’ll get back around to it.

On my ever increasing backlog of games to get through.

Yeah, unfortunately that’s kind of how it is. I don’t know how many SNES or earlier games you’ve played but it’s a similar design philosophy for that era of games. You were expected to be a kid with massive amounts of free time - and generally back then our game libraries were only a couple games.

When I had ALttP on the SNES my only other games were Wizardry 5 and Mortal Kombat - so it was easy to remain on-task with ALttP and not get frustrated/distracted by other games.

There was no handholding or guided-ness to games. Usually a notebook by your side to keep track of locked items, hand drawn maps, and etc to keep track of everything in between sessions.

It didn’t matter much as a kid back then because that’s just how games were. I mean look at the mega man games - those are brutal to try and play now. But for someone going in fresh, without the nostalgia factor, I can see how it would be considered difficult to get into.

But there’s no shame in not finding it enjoyable. Just because it’s a classic doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.

If you’re set on it though - and you have a 3DS - A link between worlds is a good medium. That’s a bit more modern and not as difficult, while maintaining the core gameplay. I think I died a total of 3 times on my first play through so it wasn’t difficult at all.

Playing through that then going back might make ALttP more enjoyable on a second attempt.

Honestly, without going into too much detail - aimlessly wandering and exploring is kind of a Zelda games thing. More so with the older ones. Trying to play the original NES with no guide other than my own notes is a lesson in patience, and I replay it every year. As well as ALttP here. You don’t need to find all the heart containers, so don’t spend too much time searching for them - a lot of them are going to be hidden behind items you haven’t unlocked yet. Save that for part of your final dungeon prep. Do look for the enhanced armor to take less damage though - however I’m not sure when exactly that unlocks to be found.

But the swamp palace is a PiTA. Those water skimmers are a giant pain always running into you, and all the various switches and backtracking. I don’t want to say that the dungeons get easier after this one - it’s just where the game really starts to Zelda and the mechanics of the game should start clicking as you go through and on to the next one, making them easier.

This is why I’m glad it’s day 1 gamepass - if it sucks or is unplayable then I didn’t waste any money.

But so far I’ve played every Bethesda game(elder+fallout) since Morrowind at launch - apart from their MMOs - and while they are buggy, none have been unplayable or unenjoyable due to their launch bugs. So hopefully this remains the case.

From what I understand of how this whole system works here - you can just host/create your own instance for that community. Make some mod post on your subreddit about how you’re migrating the community, if anyone can help host it if you’re unable, and if they want to follow over they can.

And the PlayStation ports of their games were always terrible. Like the further south you went in Oblivion the longer it would take to load a town. Sometimes Leyawin would take 5+ minutes to load.

Skyrim had that stuff with data corruption and the upside down dragons.

While I don’t remember, I’m sure the fallout PlayStation versions had their own issues. So I’m glad Bethesda is solely Xbox/pc now because the PS versions were a distant afterthought anyways.

30fps is fine so long as it’s not a crutch. And since it’s on game pass day one, if it’s terrible all I’ve done is waste bandwidth downloading it, and not $70.